Atticus: O’Regan decides not to name and shame reporters

It’s a new era in government and everything is under review and it seems this motto has even been adopted as far as bylines go in a rival newspaper office

F
ear, as Dan Rather, the former CBS Evening News anchor once said, runs almost
every newsroom. But in the offices of the Irish Independent it appears that
anonymity, or the threat of it, does the trick just as well.

In last Wednesday’s edition, two stories on page six and another on page seven
carried bylines that read either Irish Independent Reporters or Irish
Independent Reporter.

The pieces were well-written, accurate and straightforward, so it appeared
strange that no named journalists were credited with them.

Or it did until our spies revealed that the strange attributions occurred at
the behest of Gerry O’Regan, the Independent’s editor.

Seems O’Regan was of the view that the stories needed to be tweaked and,
rather mischievously, decided to strip the hard-pressed hacks of their
bylines to remind those who needed reminding that an editor’s say on style
issues (and everything else) is final.